The housing stock in the Dunbar area of Vancouver has undergone significant change in the past five years. Originally a working class neighbourhood with many quite modest homes surrounded by lovely gardens, it is now a neighbourhood that 99% of the people working in Vancouver cannot afford because the replacement homes are built to the maximum footprint and cost millions. Greenspace has been reduced. Included on this website are photos of many (not all) of the disappeared houses.View Teardowns in the Dunbar area of Vancouver, BC in a larger map

Demolitions West of the Dunbar Community Centre

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

This one has been on my list for nearly 4 1/2 years. The house was repeatedly up for sale, and it was unclear if anyone lived there, perhaps, perhaps not.

The lot is 66 feet wide, and there was an attempt to split it into two 33 foot lots, as you can see from the survey marker.

Curiously, some logs appeared in the front yard, not part of a tree that was cut down, but more resembling a rough sculpture. This photo is from April 2013, when it was again for sale.

Note the survey marker in the foreground showing the wide side yard.

Here's a peek on Sunday, May 10 when the door was wide open.

Two days later, this 1939 house was demolished. However, the wrong house almost got demolished! An alert neighbour noticed the excavator being delivered to an incorrect address.

The demolition began with the one-car garage. Of this writing, it is not clear whether there will be one or two houses, as the site has been leveled but there is no hole.

If you want to read more...when I did a blog on a different house on 33rd in 2013, I received an email from someone who had lived next door to this house. She gave me permission to use her email, and I have stripped out some of the names.

Hi again Janice I'll give you just a little bit of info about 4086 W
33rd. It was built by the McGlashens, Mrs McGlashen was my sister's
Grade One teacher, at the Southlands Annex. When
they built Southlands school (1952 or 1953 ) it was quite the state of
the Art school,...I think she may have moved over there, just a block
away, to teach Grade Three. I can't remember that part. At any rate,
she and Mr McGlashen and Mr and Mrs Boomer, who
had owned our house, used to join forces back garden wise I guess,
because there was a little gate in the fence between our two back
yards. They had a really nice rose garden too, and kept the place up
beautifully. The Zeegers moved in sometime around 1969
or so, the year I got married and moved away. Mrs McGlashen always had a
ready cookie for my baby brother...until he was about 8!!

4086 is a lovely home on the inside, cut glass doors here and there, and
a nice fireplace and a sun room. I think the basement was finished off
too. When I talked to Ms M 2 years ago, she told me that they were waiting
for the house to be sold but that it hadn't been. I don't think Ms M
wants it sold....she loved that house....I guess demolition
is a possibility but then the house is sound
so maybe someone will just renovate.

Friday, May 15, 2015

This house has not been for sale in recent times; word is that it is the owner who is building a new home. Perhaps that is why the site is one of the cleanest and neatest demolition and building sites that one sees. Although the house was well maintained, it had not been enlarged and perhaps had not been updated extensively and hence was the buildings were assessed at only $42,000. Demolished on April 23, 2015.

The new method of deconstruction now used for many houses in Vancouver can reveal interesting things. The original shingles of this 1939 house are the same as the shingles on my house built nearby at the same time. The shingles on this house had been covered by something easier to care for.

But more interesting is the underlining construction for the "rolled" roof edges. I contacted an architect friend, who informed me that this is called "steam bent shingles style". I think the original roof would have been cedar. Cedar shingles would have been more suited to the curvature than asphalt shingles.

Link here if you want to see more on this technique and how "story-book" it would have looked with the original cedar shingles.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

This is another of the 1951 houses built for young families near the Pacific Spirit Park and what is now St. George's Secondary School. They are nearly all disappearing when they are sold. This one was for sale in March 2013. Two years later, on April 15, 2015, it was demolished. In the meantime, it stood empty.

But things were happening. Shortly after being sold, there was digging in the back, for the oil tank most likely.

In the fall of 2014, there was digging in the front. It rarely happens, but the digging was coordinated with the construction of a new house directly across the street, so the road had to be closed only once for the two houses. According to neighbours across the lane, the house was "deconstructed" as more and more are these days.

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My Other Blog

Growing Edibles is about front-yard vegetable gardens I've observed in the Dunbar area of Vancouver, B.C. Canada, and beyond. I am no longer adding content to this blog, but it still shows the interesting creativity of gardeners that grow their own food.